Samsung has announced that it has begun mass producing the “industry’s first” 12Gb (gigabit) LPDDR5 mobile DRAM. The new hardware is optimised for emerging technologies including 5G and AI and will be included in upcoming premium smartphones. The Korean firm also said that it’s developing 12GB (gigabyte) LPDDR5 packages later this month which combine eight 12Gb chips to deliver even more performance.

“With mass production of the 12Gb LPDDR5 built on Samsung’s latest second-generation 10-nanometer (nm) class process, we are thrilled to be supporting the timely launch of 5G flagship smartphones for our customers worldwide. Samsung remains committed to rapidly introducing next-generation mobile memory technologies that deliver greater performance and higher capacity, as we continue to aggressively drive growth of the premium memory market.”

As mentioned earlier, the hardware has been designed with 5G and AI in mind, and the applications that they enable. Samsung says the chip handles ultra-high-definition video recording and machine learning well while extending the life of the battery. The memory has a data rate of 5,500 megabits per second, which is 1.3 times faster than the older LPDDR4X memory that comes in high-end smartphones today.

Samsung also says that when the memory is combined into a 12GB package, the memory is able to transfer 44GB of data in one second, which is the equivalent of 12 full-HD movies. The LPDDR5 mobile DRAM continues to use the 10-nm process, which the firm has been using in this class of memory since September 2016.

Discussing its future plans, Samsung said that next year it wants to develop 16Gb LPDDR5 mobile DRAM and depending on the demand of memory from global customers, the firm could also shift its 12Gb LPDDR5 production to Pyeongtaek next year.